Post navigation

Attention Deficit Disorder Exposed as Drug Marketing Ploy

Attention Deficit Disorder Exposed as Drug Marketing Ploy

A Patient on ADD ADHD Drugs and Anovulation:Case Study

Nancy is recently married at the age of 24 and she would like to start a family.

Nancy came to see me in the office because she has not had a normal menstrual period in a year. A health professional friend of the family familiar with my work suggested she see me to restart her menstrual cycles with natural progesterone. Left Above image courtesy of LA Weekly.

After a brief chat in the office, Nancy reveals she takes ADHD medication, a drug called Adderal which she started in school for a diagnosis of Attention Deficit Disorder. Last year, her doctors switched her to a stronger dosage of Vyvanse, another amphetamine like drug commonly used for ADD/ ADHD. She also takes a Xanax for sleep. After completing the routine physical examination and laboratory studies, I explained to Nancy that the ADD drugs are causing hypothalamic dysfunction, and are the cause for her anovulation and cessation of normal menstrual cycles.

I advised Nancy to taper off the ADD drugs if she wanted to resume normal ovulatory cycles. Nancy did not at all like this message, and replied that her other doctors told her she needs to be on these drugs “for life” and besides, she needs them to function normally though her day. Nancy stormed out of the office and did not return calls.

Attention Deficit Disorder Exposed as Drug Marketing Ploy

Article in the New York Times

For decades, now, the diagnosis and treatment of Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD ADHD) has been criticized as a marketing ploy to sell dangerous and addictive Amphetamine drugs such as Ritalln, Adderal and Vyvanse to vulnerable children.

They both point out that “Attention Deficit Disorder” is not a medical disease. It is a fabricated diagnosis made from a checklist of classroom behaviors such as fidgeting in the seat, not paying attention to the teacher, or blurting out answers, etc. all of which they consider to be normal childhood behavior. As such the diagnosis and treatment of ADD, ADHD is a fraud.

Dr Breggin and Baughman oppose the use of ADHD drugs in children, claiming the drugs convert spontaneous, creative and inquisitive behavior into pacified, blunted and stereotyped behavior. They quote animal studies in which amphetamines cause permanent irreversible brain damage, and studies in humans show no increase in academic performance or any other lasting benefit.

New York Times Gets On Board

“recent data …show that the diagnosis (of ADD) had been made in 15 percent of high school-age children, and that the number of children on medication for the disorder had soared to 3.5 million from 600,000 in 1990. He (Keith Connors) questioned the rising rates of diagnosis and called them “a national disaster of dangerous proportions.”

“The numbers make it look like an epidemic. Well, it’s not. It’s preposterous,” Dr. Conners, a psychologist and professor emeritus at Duke University, said in a subsequent interview. “This is a concoction to justify the giving out of medication at unprecedented and unjustifiable levels.(1)”

Junk Food / Soda Pop vending machines were removed from a school in Appleton Wisconsinwhich changed their school lunches over to the Feingold Diet, eliminating artificial food dyes, colorings, preservatives, and flavorings. Teachers and Parents were astonished to find improved behavior in the children who were previously out of control. Volumes of published studiesreveal the link between Artificial Food Additives in the Diet, hyperactivity, neurotoxicity and ADHD type behavior problems all of which resolves upon cleaning up the diet. Dr Bateman published a controlled trial in 2004 showing the adverse effect of artificial food colouring and benzoate preservatives on the behaviour of 3 year old children.

Left image courtesy of Feingold web site. Girl with blue tongue from Blue 1 Food Coloring.The two colors Brilliant Blue and Patent Blue were found to be mitochondrial toxins.

Mandatory Prison Sentence for Pharmaceutical CEO’s for Fraud

The marketing of the ADD/ADHD epidemic is a fraud on the public which should be halted immediately.

Last year, five drug companies paid.5.5 billion dollars to settle US Dept of Justice allegations of fraud. Monetary settlements are merely considered the cost of doing business, and so far, have not served as a deterrent . It’s time to take off the gloves, and impose prison sentences on pharmaceutical CEO’s and executives. Drug Company marketing of dangerous drugs to children based on fabricated diagnoses should be punishable as felony with mandatory prison time for CEOs.

ADHD Does Not Exist, the book.

Update March 17 2014:Article in Time Magazine: Doctor: ADHD Does Not Exist by Dr. Richard Saul (new book see below)

Dr. Richard Saul is a neurologist in Northbrook, Illinois. He is affiliated with multiple hospitals in the area, including Alexian Brothers Medical Center and Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. He received his medical degree from Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science and has been in practice for 49 years. He is the author of : “ADHD Doesn’t Exist.”

Dr. Corrigan is a psychologist, author, statistician, and professor whose mission is to discredit the mythic propaganda and voodoo behind the ADHD diagnosis and the dangerous drugs so often prescribed. For more of Corrigan’s recent work please visit Debunking ADHD.

MTHFR and ADHD

A mutation called MTHFR has been associated with ADD ADHD.(15-17) This mutation causes an inability to convert folate to methyl folate, the active form of the vitamin. Methyl folate is necessary for neurotransmitter production in the brain, and is involved in methylation reactions. MTHFR mutation testing is available and routinely done on our lab panel. There is no methyl folate in amphetamine drugs such as Ritalin, Vyvance, Adderal. How many children are inappropriately given amphetamine drugs for ADD, ADHD and never tested for MTHFR ? All of them. In reality, the correct treatment is not with addictive neurostimulants. The correct treatment is methyl-folatealong with a balanced B vitamin Complex, all found at the local health food store. See my previous article on MTHFR-Folate in autism.

Update 2014 Nov.

Rise in ADHD cases is ‘due to marketing, not medicine’: Study blames increase on drug companies, pushy support groups, and people self-diagnosing online. Mail Online, November 19 2014

Performance enhancing drugs have been routinely used by college students and adults for decades. Two famous doctors, Sigmund Freud and William Halstead, used cocaine to enhance their performance. They were both cocaine addicts. The ADHD drugs, Adderal, Ritalin, Vyvance, and long acting amphetamines are similar to cocaine in chemical structure and pharmacology. Performance enhancing drugs do work. They enhance performance. However there is a price to pay as described in the book:Anatomy of Addiction: Sigmund Freud, William Halsted, and the Miracle Drug, Cocaine.

The drugs actually do work quite well. They enhance performance. However there is no disease being treated here.

The Selling of Attention Deficit Disorder By ALAN SCHWARZ new york times December 14, 2013 How Pharmaceuticals Sell A.D.H.D. What makes A.D.H.D. ads so effective? Dr. Aaron Kesselheim of Brigham and Women’s Hospital analyzes several ads and discusses how they play on parents’ common fears about their children.

“This is a concoction to justify the giving out of medication at unprecedented and unjustifiable levels,” Keith Conners, a psychologist and early advocate for recognition of A.D.H.D., said of the rising rates of diagnosis of the disorder.Karsten Moran for The New York Times

Originally published in The Journal of College Student Psychotherapy, Vol. 10(2) 1995, pp. 55-72 The Hazards of Treating “Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder” with Methylphenidate (Ritalin) by Peter R. Breggin, M.D. and Ginger Ross Breggin

ABSTRACT. The criteria for Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder focus on behaviors that adults find frustrating and disruptive. Conflicts between children and adults are redefined as diseases or disorders within the children. Treatment with stimulant drugs such as methylphenidate (Ritalin) will produce greater docility in any child (or animal) without actually improving conduct or academic performance. Parents are not informed that they are trading behavioral control for toxic drug effects. The label ADHD is attached to children who are in reality deprived of appropriate adult attention These children require improved adult attention to their basic needs

Published on Apr 23, 2013 Dr Breggin on Public Radio International’s To The Point (April 3, 2013):

“There’s been a huge leap in the diagnosis of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in American children. Doctors are prescribing drugs including Ritalin and Adderall to treat ADHD. But, what is it? Are drugs the right answer? What are the consequences of widespread abuse in college and elsewhere?”

ADHD World -TREATMENTS THAT WORK, MYTHS ABOUT ADHD, EXCESSES IN PROFESSIONAL MANAGEMENT OF ADHD, AND THE SCIENCE OF ADHDC. KEITH CONNERS, PH.D.DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA, UNITED STATESFounder of Duke ADHD program. Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Harvard. Graduate of U. of Chicago and Rhodes Scholar at Oxford.

Dr. Martha Farah and colleagues found no cognitive benefit from Adderall taken by students. University of Pennsylvania A June study looked at medication usage and educational outcomes of nearly 4,000 students in Quebec over an average of 11 years and found that boys who took ADHD drugs actually performed worse in school than those with a similar number of symptoms who didn’t.

Children with ADHD not taking stimulants did far worse than kids taking medication in tasks that involved remembering scenes from a story they both heard and saw illustrated. Kids taking medication did just as well as control children without ADHD, according to the study published in April in the journal Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior.

But the effects largely don’t seem to translate into the classroom, especially in the long run. In one major, U.S. government-funded study known as the MTA that looked at the long-term effects of ADHD treatment, 579 children with the condition were randomized to one of three different kinds of treatment or a control group for 14 months.

For the first year of the study, the 8- and 9-year-old children who received medication and a combination treatment saw greater improvements in ADHD symptoms than the other two groups. Kids taking medicine also exhibited some improvement in educational outcomes in that first year.But any benefit of the drug on symptoms dissipated by Year Three. At the most recent set of assessments, the eight-year follow-up, there were no differences between any of the groups on symptoms or academic achievement measures, suggesting that there wasn’t any long-term residual benefit of the treatments during childhood.

with a forward by Dick Scruggs, JD Paperback published by Perseus Books, 2001
Dr. Peter Breggin’s book: Talking Back to Ritalin details the side effects and potential problems with Ritalin and other stimulants. It also thoroughly and critically examines the condition and diagnosis of ADHD and ADD, explores the economics and who profits from the diagnosis and the prescribing of stimulants for children, and offers six chapters for parents and other adults on how to help children in their care without resorting to Ritalin or other psychiatric drugs. Now there are 4-5 million children on ritalin. “we are literally pouring into our children drugs that have been viewed as dangerous street drugs.”

these are all scheduel 2 drugs- highest addiction schedule similar to cocaine

19) Children’s hyperactivity ‘is not a real disease’, says US expertChildren’s hyperactivity ‘is not a real disease’, says US expert. Neuroscientist says children are being ‘labelled’ as having ADHD when there could be other reasons for their disorder…Dr Bruce D Perry told the Observer …. clinicians were too readily prescribing psychostimulants to children when the evidence suggested there were no long-term benefits. Animal studies have raised concerns over the potential for damage to be done.

The reader is advised to discuss the comments on these pages with his/her personal physicians and to only act upon the advice of his/her personal physician. Also note that concerning an answer which appears as an electronically posted question, I am NOT creating a physician — patient relationship. Although identities will remain confidential as much as possible, as I can not control the media, I can not take responsibility for any breaches of confidentiality that may occur.

Copyright (c) 2014 Jeffrey Dach MD All Rights Reserved. This article may be reproduced on the internet without permission, provided there is a link to this page and proper credit is given.

FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of issues of significance. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

You don’t seem to have Dr Gayle Eversole as a link. You should. She started blowing the whistle on the add adhd drug issue in the early 90s. And she’s saved so many lives. The Natural Health expert, studying this topic for 60 years and also medically educated.

Here is over a 1000 scientific studies and articles that mostly disagree with your conclusions either explicitly or implicitly (you may find some support, but not much). The New York Times and other anecdotal evidence may appeal to the uniformed, but science is the arbiter of reason here, and emotionally influence rants, opinions without scientific support, and the conclusions of the media are the legions of folly. I am a strong supporter of nutrition, supplements, and other similar approaches for many conditions, but they do have their limits.

Where’s the book entitled “Depression does not exist” — considering genes have been discovered to be affiliated with low levels of serotonin and distinctions in serotonin transporters? Because the genes linked to ADHD are exactly that but with dopamine.